focus: blockchain
IBS Journal October 2015
Clockwise from upper left: Peter Shiau, Miron Cuperman, Peter Harris and Lior Saar of
Blockstack.io
The company’s website is also restrained
in how it presents information. It is an elegant and simple design. There are no long expla- nations. And there is a good reason for this. ‘We want people to call us, because blockchain development is not the easiest thing to describe on a website. ‘It will take time to explain, but I think
telling it is a lot easier than trying to put on a web page. ‘It also makes is harder for other com- panies to look at what we’re doing.’
Lucid in the sky with titans With all that said, Shiau is more than happy to explain to IBS how blockchain works. ‘Firstly, part of the story of understand-
With any new technology, there is
innovation aplenty, and Shiau says there are a lot of internal labs with blockchain teams across the US. ‘Blockchain technology is being
explored and if people can find value and they’re trying to connect multiple parties that really need that depth, then there might be consumers, other partners and other financial institutions to connect with. ‘And we’re seeing gaps where at least some
of the applications are gravitating towards discovering more efficient ways of working together. And that’s a good place to start.’
Ventures in time
Shiau won’t be pressed on a timescale for when
Blockstack.io will be good and ready. ‘It really depends on how quickly these
institutions want to go public. I don’t think it will be years, but I think it will be months – maybe by the end of the year.’
The company is also raising funds but
Shiau politely declines to identify exist- ing investors. However, it is here where the mindset of
Blockstack.io is different from some other companies. ‘We’d rather wait before revealing
that information. This is a philosophical approach we have. ‘If you look at a lot of companies – they
put out press releases. But we’ve definitely been on the quiet side of the spectrum. And that’s on purpose, because if you get half a million dollars in angel funding and you announce that in a press release, then I find that to be helpful, and congratulations you got a loan, but you haven’t done anything yet. ‘You don’t see your baker down the
street getting a business loan and then issuing a press release about it. They’re just getting capital to do the real work. ‘So we would prefer to wait and talk about something when we have some- thing to talk about.’
© IBS Intelligence 2015
ing is to separate bitcoin from the technol- ogy that’s now known as blockchain. ‘I often use the analogy of the Ford
Motor Company’s Model T. Blockchain is like the modern assembly line and can be used for lots of different things. That’s the first mental framework I give.’ The next step he says is to make a deci-
sion. Will the technology be for a private or public blockchain? ‘With a public blockchain we have to
essentially subscribe to that network and its rules – and for better or worse you don’t have much control of how it operates. ‘Unlike a private blockchain, where you can take it and customise it to your needs, and you can choose who’s in the network and who’s not.’ Good things come in threes and Shiau adds a final and ‘important’ point. ‘You need the assumption that finan- cial institutions themselves will run the net- work. They will not be run by ourselves or anybody else.’
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